When people get near California’s giant sequoias, they usually look up. But Professor Steve Hart looks down, and what he finds beneath the trees has intrigued him. The trees, some of which could be more than 3,000 years old, appear to influence the soil, increasing the pH and the levels of nitrogen

Professor Masashi Kitazawa wants to figure out if any environmental factors increase the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease – specifically, whether elevated levels of copper in drinking water play a role. A new $2.6 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health

Professor K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research Institute and the 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, will offer a chemistry seminar at UC Merced at 3 p.m. Friday in COB 120. His pioneering work on asymmetric catalysis, which earned him the prestigious award, led to the discovery of

UC Merced has hired 34 faculty members for the 2014-15 academic year, giving the campus 212 tenure-track professors who expand the depth and breadth of research expertise. Excluding student employees, the campus now has about 1,300 total staff and faculty members, which also includes 149 lecturers

Professor Carolin Frank will collect $1.6 million over the next four years to continue researching the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in pine needles and to work with the Sierra Foothill Charter School, which she helped found. The National Science Foundation (NSF) selected Frank, with the School

Extreme changes in seasonality in the Sierra Nevada can have lasting impacts on meadow health and could mean less water and carbon storage in high elevation wetlands, according to research conducted at UC Merced. The results of work by then-graduate student and current staff member Chelsea Arnold

The long-awaited Science and Engineering Building 2 officially opens today, providing more space for instruction, research and offices. The ribbon-cutting ceremony begins at 1 p.m. Thirty months in the making, the building is designed to foster interdisciplinary work for researchers across UC Merced

The discovery of a new, rare species of monkey flower by Professor Jason Sexton provides clues as to how new species are born. Sexton, who researches the monkey flowers that grow wild throughout California, and are especially prolific in the Sierra Nevada, conducted this work with researchers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8wzG0QWw80A group of students working with Professor Benoit Dayrat learned first-hand this summer about the field research opportunities available to undergraduates at UC Merced. Dayrat and his students traveled to Malaysia and Borneo in Southeast Asia, where they

A relatively simple combination of naturally occurring sugars and amino acids offers a plausible route to the building blocks of life, according to a paper published in Nature Chemistry co-authored by a professor at the University of California, Merced. The study, "A Route to Enantiopure RNA